You have a move date, a lease, and four vendors: a landlord, a general contractor, a furniture vendor, and an internet provider. None of them owns the network. This office move network checklist is ordered the way construction runs, so you know which network decisions have to happen before the next phase starts and which can wait. The hard line is the walls closing. Pathways, the closet location, rack power, and drop counts are cheap to change on a drawing and expensive to change after drywall goes up.

Why the network gets decided too late

Everyone in a move has a piece of the network and nobody has the whole thing. The landlord usually controls where utilities enter the building, and sometimes the riser. The general contractor builds the walls and ceiling and schedules the trades that run through them. The furniture vendor places the desks, which determines where every outlet needs to land. The internet provider controls when a circuit goes live, on its own schedule. The cabling installer, who has to coordinate with all four, is often brought in last, after the drawings are already final.

That gap is where move dates slip. A pathway decided by a landlord’s drawing, a closet sized by a GC’s punch list, and an outlet count driven by a furniture plan can each be reasonable alone and still add up to a network that does not fit the space.

The checklist, by phase

Before you sign the lease. The building sets limits you cannot change later: where utilities enter and whether there is a room that can work as a network closet. A space with no logical closet location is worth knowing about before you sign.

When the floor plan is drawn. This is the cheapest point in the project to get the network right. A site survey and a written scope with drop counts, materials and pathways belong here, before anyone commits to a layout. Decide where the network closet goes and confirm it has power and cooling.

Before the walls close. Any conduit or sleeve for a pathway that will sit behind drywall has to be in place before the wall is finished. This is the hard line: a pathway missed here means opening a finished wall later. Ask your general contractor for that date, and confirm anything about code or permits with the contractor and your local building department.

Before the ceiling closes. Routes above the ceiling and access point placement should be set before the grid and tiles go in. A coverage gap found after the ceiling closes is a harder fix than one found on a drawing.

Before the furniture arrives. Furniture plans shift between the drawing and delivery. Confirming final outlet and drop locations against the actual layout, not the drawing, catches drops that need to move before anyone has run them to the wrong spot.

Cutover week. Taking a network live in a new space usually means a short window where the old location goes down and the new one comes up. Disruptive work and cutovers are scheduled by agreement, planned around your operations. Ask for a written order of operations, with someone confirming each step before the next.

After the move. The work is not done when the furniture is in place. Every circuit, drop, and wireless zone should be confirmed against what was designed, and the handover documentation collected while the install is fresh in everyone’s memory.

The two lead times that set the move date

Two items on this list run on schedules you do not control: the internet circuit and the switching hardware. Call as soon as you have a floor plan, ideally six to eight weeks out. Cabling happens before furniture and often before the space is finished, and lead times on switching and circuits often set the move date. Ask your internet provider and your hardware supplier for their current lead times in writing, because those numbers change.

Cat6 or Cat6A

Part of the floor plan decision is which cable goes where, depending on distance, density, and how long you plan to stay in the space. It is not always one answer for the whole office: mixing cable types is allowed and often sensible, and which runs get which cable is decided at the design stage, not after the walls close. We cover the technical differences and when each one earns its cost in Cat6 vs Cat6A: Which Cable Belongs in Your Office.

What to ask for at handover

A move generates documentation that is easy to lose track of once everyone moves on. Ask for all of it before you sign off:

• Test results for every cable run, not a sample.
• Labels at both ends of every run, matching a plan you can read later.
• As-built drawings reflecting what was actually installed, not just what was designed.
• Switch and firewall configurations, documented rather than left in the install team’s head.
• Credentials for the equipment you now own.

This is documentation you keep. Ask for it before sign-off so it ends up in your hands, not only with whoever installed it.

What you may not need

A move is not a reason to replace everything, and an honest checklist says so.

• A move or a buildout is not automatically a full re-cable. A site survey confirms what the existing infrastructure can support, so get that answer before you pay for new runs.
• You may not need Cat6A on every run. It depends on distance, density and how long you will stay. Cat6A costs more per foot and takes more pathway space, and mixing is allowed and often sensible: Cat6A to access points and long runs, Cat6 to standard desk locations on short runs.
• You do not need a quote in hand to start this checklist. The work is surveyed, scoped and quoted before anyone runs a cable, so the fixed quote comes after the site survey.

Next step

Send us the floor plan and we will scope it. Request a site survey or call 224-531-1000. Cabling, fiber and hands-on network work is on site across the north and northwest suburbs: Prospect Heights, Arlington Heights, Palatine, Wheeling, Mount Prospect, Des Plaines, Northbrook, Schaumburg and nearby. Network design is also available remotely.